Made it to Grand Junction - Thanks to Gyroscopes

It's 10:15p CST and I've been in Grand Junction, CO for about an hour. It was definitely a hard day of riding, primarily due to the strong canyon winds that pounded me most of the afternoon as I wound down the snake like stretch of I-70 that cuts through most of Colorado's finest ski resorts. Thank goodness a motorcycle has two gyroscopes that keep it upright when you're leaning into a curve while an unexpected gust hits.


The day started with a wonderful breakfast at Stacey's Restaurant in Junction City Kansas. This place was a classic piece of americana. With it's clientel, primarily made up of local construction workers, farmers and soliders from the nearby base. While I was eating my biscuits and gravy, feeling like the obvious out of towner. I watched as the local sheriff, a friendly, yet somewhat homely looking young woman, would stop by each table and sit down with the locals as if to catch up on the daily gossip. You could sense that these were hard working, no nonsense people who lived for their daily rendezvous.

With my belly full and very satisfied, it was back to I-70W to finish the drive through Kansas. A lot of people think that Kansas is flat, but actually it is made up of many rolling hills. I would best describe it like the giant slide at the fair. On its western border the elevation is over 3500' and it tapers down to around 650' in the east. Then throughout the whole state from west to east there's one hill after another. Just outside of Ellsworth there's a 10 mile stretch where there are hundreds of giant wind turbines. I can see why they picked this area as the wind was significantly higher here. After 6 more hours on the Kansas interstate, I was definitely ready for some different scenery; and that's exactly what I got. After climbing through the high plains of Colorado before I new it I was looking at mountains. Here's just a few shots.
After a long day of riding I finally reached the exit for Grand Junction. As luck would have it the sun was casting a beautiful pink shade on the surrounding mountains. Even though there was almost no shoulder on which to park, I said "screw it" and parked the best I could right on the exit ramp. I quickly pulled out my camera, took a seat on the nearby hill and did my best to stabilize the camera, as the light was getting very low. Low an behold I was able to capture this shot (and a few more). This made my day as it is a glimpse of what's to come. I can't wait until tomorrow!

Day 2 - Route to Grand Junction

It's 7:00 CST and I'm anxious to get on the road. The route looks like this; a 400 mile haul through Kansas, then the climb begins. I' m feeling good, however my eyes are a bit tired and my face is a little burnt from yesterdays wind and afternoon sun. So I've put in my eye drops, lathered on the sunscreen and lip balm and I'm ready to go. I'll find a little breakfast, call my wife and hit the road hard. I'd like to miss rush hour in Denver if at all possible...

Next report from Grand Junction, Colorado!

Day One

It's 12:30 CST and I'm calling it a day. I've logged 820 miles today. I still feel pretty good; just a slightly kinked neck but nothing my favorite massage therapest, Annissa, can't take care of upon my return (have mercy) :)

Today, in some ways, was one of the harder parts of the trip because the road is pretty much flat, and consists of farm land. The first major step was hitting the Ohio/Indiana boarder. At this point I really felt that I was on my way and not just on the typical weekend ride. The weather was great. Cool in the morning, but warming into the 80's when I hit St. Louis. I could have bypassed St. Louis, but for some reason I wanted to pass by the arch, even though I've seen it many times before. Maybe not the smartest move since I hit rush hour and it took about 90mins for me to get through the core of the city. Regardless, I got saw the arch (sorry for the poor picture, it was hard to get a good shot at 75 mph in traffic. My next adventure was to find some barbeque for dinner. Well that didn't work either thanks to many road changes in KC that confused my GPS (by the way, when are the GPS manufacturers going to implement a "ghetto avoidance" feature?).

Finally I'm in Junction City, KS, which is the midpoint of my trip. I'm staying at the Econolodge, which by the way is the best hotel in the area??? Actually it's not bad for $44 + Tax. It appears to be clean and it has a bed, and that's where I'm headed now.

See you tomorrow on Day Two. I'll probably stop in Grand Junction, CO, just short of Moab, UT

It's GO Time!

Ok, so the backpack idea didn't work out so well. The backpack was too thin for it's height and on my test ride I couldn't stablize it to my satisfaction. So I've moved everything to my motorcycle luggage. Luckily everything fit well.

I tried to keep the morning routine pretty normal, although it was hard not to feel rushed. So I dropped caleb off for his last day at school (he painted his hair pink to celebrate the day), had a long tearful hug and kiss with my wife, took a wiff of my favorite backyard bush (it smells like a gardenia), did a few last minute chores and now I'm ready to hit the road. The weather radar looks good, across the country, so perhaps I've lucked out. It's almost 9:00a est. I'll try to report in later tonight.

Time to roll!

PS Misty, I'll see you in a couple of days. Love You!

Final Preparations

So it's the afternoon before departure day. As you can see Black Beauty is 90% packed and looking good. It's raining right now, which is probably what I'll see when I leave in the morning.



Usually for a long distance trip I would use my motorcycle luggage which is made for the bike, but since I will be doing quite a bit of hiking in Utah, I decided to just load up my backpack and side bags with essentials like: Three cameras, numerous lenses, flash, two tripods, computer, hiking clothes and boots, laptop, phone, GPS, chargers and other "stuff".

The trip starts with the odometer at 47599. It will read well over 50000 when I return; but the next step is to take a test ride to see how she rolls. Since I have a massage appointment this evening, for a little personal tune-up, this will be a good test of the stability of the load. As you can see in the latest picture, I've now covered the backpack with a rain cover. Since I'll most likely be starting out in the rain, tomorrow and I'll definitely be getting wet tonight.

Well, it's time for that test run. Wish me luck!


PS Thanks for the well wishes from those who will be following my trip...

AN-TIS-A-PA-TION -- Headed West

I can't remember if it was the Carpenters or Carol King, but the song Anticipation is definitely on my mind. No not because I like to watch Ketchup slowly flow from its bottle (80's TV Commercial), but because I'm extremely anxious to get on my bike and head west. Believe it or not I've been preparing for about a month now (ok my wife says I'm a bit anal about this), but that's just what I do so that I don't forget stuff and I don't feel rushed when I head out the door.

Over the years I've had the fortune to ride through much of the East & East Central US as well as a little bit in Canada, but this will be the longest solo route that I've ridden. Approx. 5000mi all-in-all. For months I've been "in training" riding rain or shine, day or night (of course those who know me understand that I do that anyway). The route looks something like this, although traffic, weather and the unknown could alter the route a bit.
The nice thing is, I'm flexible... In general, I be riding in 2.5hr shifts and I hope to cover about 12hrs a day. So in true biker form the question is "What cha ridin?"

I call her Black Beauty. She's a 1999 Honda Valkyrie Tourer. I've ridden over 47,000 miles on her, as the original owner, and I can't think of a bike that I'd rather have. I'm personally not into the rumble of the Harleys and I'm not a great fan of the V-Twin for long trips as the vibration fatigues me a bit. But I certainly respect all bikers and their bikes as Two Wheels are Too Coool.

The route is pretty straight, route 70 most of the way headed west. I'll drive through many great cities, Indy, St. Louis, KC, just to name a few, on route to a slight jog to Wichita, where I spent 12 years of my childhood. I'd like to stop by a restaurant called NuWay. This was a childhood favorite of mine. Basically a NuWay is a ground burger, of sorts, with awesome seasoning. NuWay also makes its own root beer, which is to die for! After filling my belly with goodness, I'll head back to I-70, maybe catching a photo of a field of sunflowers (my wifes favorite). As I hit the Colorado line it won't be long before the mountains appear in the distance. As a child, heading to Colorado for summer vacation, I remember thinking that I was seeing clouds in the distance, then all of a sudden I would realize that I was really seeing mountains.

As I ride through Colorado, the camera will be calling my name as this is such a beautiful route. Next I hit Utah where I will hike Arches, Bryce and Zion (narrows). I'll meet up with my wife, youngest son & mother in-law in the Bryce area. After three days of hiking and thousands of pictures, I'll head north to Ogden, UT, to visit with family and some of my wifes' highschool friends. At some point my wife will hop on the back of the bike for a day trip to Park City. Nothing like micro-brew in the mountains, not to mention a chocolate covered strawberry from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Mmmm.

I'll separate from the family later in the week and make my way to Yellowstone, to take many more pictures. Next it's off to the Dakotas to see Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Badlands. Finally it's time to head home.

With 7 days left before my departure, I pray for clear weather, clear roads and good health. If anyone has any tips for the road or stories from their trip along a similar route, chime in.

See you next time!

We Are The Cure!

This weekend, my beautiful wife and I shared the honor of participating in our cities 16th annual, Komen Race For The Cure. On a day where rain was imminent, somehow the race route was spared any significant bad weather as we were blessed to have some ideal conditions for the over 45,000 participants of the event.

As usual the event was a dedication to the many women (and men) who courageously battle cancer as well as those who have lost their battles to this illusive disease. This year, however, there was one particular story that bonded many of the participants, for this was the year that we celebrate Heather Pick, a local newscaster who's life was shortend by this disease. Although I did not know Heather personally, following the story of her courageous battle over the past years couldn't help but make me feel connected to her and her family. So much so that my wife and I proudly donned our pink wigs and joined 'Heathers Team' of over 6000 strong.


As we walked to the starting point the 10TV traffic copter hovered over head. This seemed appropriate since Heather spent many years at 10TV. I can only imagine the awe-inspiring view from above as the sea of pink and white meandered along the city streets. How it must have felt to see 10's of thousands of people all gravitating to the the starting point then funneled onto the raceway like pink toothpaste being squeezed from its tube. 10's of thousands, all there for a shared purpose; all motivated by a chapter from their own life story that when bound together form the book called 'Race for the Cure'.

Although the participants wear predomanently pink and white, the emotions of which they participate are infinite. We walked along the course and read the many signs worn by other participants; We saw joy, sorrow, relief, sadness, unity, freedom, determination, uncertainty and many other emotions. We became fully aware that this disease is not exclusive to one age group, gender, race, social or religious sector. Cancer does not just effect the carrier, but also the families, friends, co-workers, and anyone who's life has been touched by the carrier. One shirt that expecially touched me was in memory of a woman who lost her battle. The photograph of the woman with outstretched arms, as if she was flying, resonated the caption which was "Lived well, Laughed Often, Loved Much, Finally Free!" What can you say but Wow!

Of all of the many shirt designs that we saw, it's the pink survior shirts that gave hope that doctors are making progress in the fight against Cancer.




Another thing that I found very interesting was the support from people from all different walks of life: White collar, blue collar, even dog collar. Yes the hounds were out in force doing their part for the cause. That's one cool pup!!!

So all in all it was a wonderful event that my wife and I look forward to participating in next year.

How about you? Are you a supporter of the Race for the Cure? I'd like to hear your story.

See you next time on my Ride to Utah!